And just like that, within a matter of days, the jury has reached a verdict in Apple vs. Samsung. The basic gist is simple: Apple's software patents are valid, and many Samsung devices infringe upon them. Apple's iPhone 3G trade dress is valid, and Samsung's Galaxy S line infringes, but other devices did not. Samsung did not infringe Apple's iPad design patent. Apple did not infringe any of Samsung's patents. Apple is awarded a little over $1 billion in damages. Competition lost today, and developers in the United States should really start to get worried - software patents got validated big time today.

This boils down to one thing in my mind. Cross licensing. Samsung has reached cross licensing deals with almost every other company for its FRAND patents. Thats the way the world is suppose to work. Apple though, doesn't want cross licensing because it wants exclusivity. So Apple won on the look alike argument, no surprise there. But Apple still has yet to license the FRAND licenses from Samsung. That leaves the aces still in Samsung's pocket IMHO. Why? Gui stuff, software patents, those are notoriously easy to overturn or work around. Hardware patents like Samsung owns, are incredibly difficult. Especially when they are standards as that gives them even more legitimacy. In fact, FRAND rules acknowledge this by virtue of the fact that you risk losing you right to FRAND licensing if you try to overturn the patents. So at the end of the day, Samsung owes Apple $1 Billion. But I can easily see them getting that and more back for the FRAND licenses. The real object though is to force Apple into a cross license deal.